The Effects of Adult Children's Unemployment on Parental Mental Health: Geographical Distance as a Moderator

A large body of research shows that parental unemployment has negative consequences for children's mental health. However, we know much less about the reverse pattern in intergenerational crossover effects. This study fills the gap by showing how unemployment among adult children is related to parents' mental health, and how this relationship is moderated by the geographical distance separating parents from their children. We analyze longitudinal data from seven of the first eight waves of the SHARE survey for 16 European countries from 2004 to 2020. Our analytic sample consists of 299,755 distinct observations for 78,837 parent-child dyads. We employ correlated random-effects models, which control for unobserved fixed-in-time confounders and allow for interacting time-varying observed characteristics in an appropriate way. Our results show that, generally, adult children's unemployment affects parental mental health negatively. Adult children's unemployment has particularly strong negative consequences for the mental health of mothers who coreside with their children. Regarding fathers, relatively larger effects emerge in the group with children who live near enough to have regular interactions but not close enough to provide direct instrumental support. Our findings highlight the role of coresidence and distance in shaping the interrelatedness of economic well-being and health across generations.